Cabin stowaway re-arrested at Los Angeles airport

(Reuters) - A woman who sneaked aboard a commercial flight at the San Jose International Airport without a ticket this week and flew to Southern California was re-arrested on Thursday after she turned up at Los Angeles International Airport, police said.

Marilyn Jean Hartman, 62, was spotted by officers wandering through terminals at the Los Angeles airport in what police described as "a scouting mission," a day after a judge ordered her to stay away from the airfield, Los Angeles airport police said in a statement.

Hartman had pleaded no contest on Wednesday to a misdemeanor stowaway charge following her arrest on Monday for illegally boarding a Southwest Airlines flight from San Jose to Los Angeles.

Her presence on that flight was detected after a headcount in Los Angeles turned up an extra passenger before the plane continued on to Phoenix, a San Jose airport spokeswoman said. Hartman had apparently slipped past a document check by security agents by posing as a member of a family group, authorities said.

On Wednesday, a judge placed Hartman on a two-year probation, and she was released on the condition that she not return to Los Angeles International Airport, the police statement said.

"When we knew she was going to be released from custody, we were prepared," said Airport Police Chief Patrick Gannon in the statement.

Hartman had previously been sentenced to probation and referred to a mental health residence in May after she was arrested at the San Francisco airport for boarding a flight to Hawaii without a ticket and for trespassing at the airport.

She was the second successful stowaway at the San Jose airport in recent months, after a 15-year-old Somali immigrant boy scaled a fence, climbed into a plane wheel well and managed to survive a flight to Hawaii in April.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in New York; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Mohammad Zargham)